Plugged into his laptop, Zack Schoem’s miniature keyboard can mimic the sound of just about any instrument. It’s a hand-me-down that originally belonged to his older brother, an agent who represents DJs.

The keyboard can’t be more than a foot long. But it’s this compact plastic piano that gives life to all of the music from Not Sober, Schoem’s Syracuse University-based EDM group.

“It all starts here. All of our content, all of our thoughts,” said Schoem, a sophomore accounting major. “Now we can get every single idea we’ve had out just through this tiny thing.”

With his secondhand keyboard, Schoem is able to make use of second nature musical skills. He started playing the trumpet at age nine, and then moved onto the drums. Schoem said music has always been in his head.

But last semester Schoem was significantly derailed from making music, as an illness kept him from devoting as much time as he would have liked to his passion. Originally a member of another student EDM duo Blame Game, Schoem has since resorted to creating with some old friends.

Evan Jenkins | Staff Photographer

“It doesn’t take much for me to think of music,” Schoem said. “I could be in the shower or really anywhere. You can’t stop me from making music.”

John Carino and Alec Gillinder round out the Not Sober team. Gillinder, a sophomore industrial design major, has been best friends with Schoem since childhood. They’ve been collaborating for years to produce all sorts of musical projects, whether it’s rock, atmospheric music or EDM. Schoem said it helps to have someone in his corner who is comfortable enough to give constructive feedback.

Schoem met Carino, a sophomore architecture major, at an SU summer program nearly three years ago. During the program, Schoem won an entrepreneurship contest for a practice guitar he came up with. He decided to not pursue selling his guitar idea, a decision he said he regrets. Three years later, Schoem is determined to avoid making the same mistake again.

“I’m definitely taking my own advice,” Schoem said. “I have to jump on ‘Not Sober’ while no one has done anything.”

Not Sober is a musical venture, but as its slogan states, it’s “More Than Just Music.” Schoem said he wants make a business out of it. He’s working with a lawyer now on getting the name copyrighted. The strategy is to sell hats, shirts and other forms or apparel branded with the title, with Carino doing much of the design work.

Evan Jenkins | Staff Photographer

The idea is not to sell these products as merchandise for the musical act — Schoem said that would belittle their work. Instead, they hope to appeal to the college students, a group that Schoem said is notorious for being, for lack of better term, not sober. Schoem said they plan to feed off the irony of the brand’s message, selling Not Sober apparel to people who are often not sober, such as patrons at EDM concerts. Carino likened Not Sober to the brand Supreme, asking if anyone even knew what Supreme really meant.

“Before anything, we should be having fun while working on the brand,” Schoem said. “That’s why it goes hand in hand.”

The onstage balance between Schoem and Carino is just as important to Not Sober as the mix between finances and fun. Behind a DJ rig, the two friends are able to play off of each other. They said that with one mixing and the other hyping, they’re able to provide a certain energy that is missing in shows and parties around campus.

Said Carino: “Syracuse is lacking an EDM scene, and we’re trying to bring that.”

Published on April 19, 2016 at 8:46 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss